It should be transparent to anyone who has been paying attention….but I'll say it anyway…. the United States is descending further into an authoritarian militarized country which features separate and distinct forms of justice for the haves…and the have-nots.

The haves….have unfettered and unquestioned rights. Their money is, in actuality, free speech. Their corporations pay cost-of-doing-business fines but are never held accountable and never admit to doing anything wrong….ever. Even though what the haves pay elected officials to do for them does not reflect the will of the American people, compromised elected officials do their utmost, anyway, to fulfill the wishes of the haves. The haves coax the politicians that work for them to pass more legislation which will further enrich them.

The have-nots, increasingly, are marginalized and denied their rights. Right before our eyes, the haves have convinced elected officials that a terrible economic crisis period is the right time for politicians on both sides to take stuff from the have-nots in order for the haves to benefit from even lower tax rates.

In all of this….corporate media have advanced the cause of the haves over the have-nots. This is understandable because corporate media is run by the haves, paid by other haves, for the sake of all of America's haves. In the soon-to-come, waste-of-time argument coming up over unemployment and payroll tax cut extensions….pay attention to how our 4th estate frames the "debate." No doubt, the haves will be pleased.

What media workers don't quite grasp in their urgency to please their haves-masters….is that the haves will turn on them just as they have turned on the 99% have-nots.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently helped to illustrates my premise when he ordered storm troopers to roll up the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zucotti Park.

During the more than six hours we spent at the raid last night, The Observer was unable to get closer than two blocks away from the protest. We assumed this was due to our lack of an official NYPD press badge, however, we also saw credentialed reporters from CNBC, CBS, the Wall Street Journal, NBC, The New York Times, Reuters and a Japanese TV station get blocked at the barricades.

It really would not be surprising in the future to see Have-Mayors, like Bloomberg, establish a new "embed" policy for the press….similar to the "embed" charade during the Iraq invasion and occupation. One of the ways that the haves control our democratic process, or what's left of it, is to control the information to which the have-nots have access.

And so it was that Bloomberg ordered the press away from any eyewitnessing of the Zucotti camp roll up by the Mayor's storm troopers.

Bloomberg went on to give his justification for denying the press access to his para-military invasion of the protester camp….

“The Police Department routinely keeps members of the press off to the side when they are in the middle of a police action. It’s to prevent a situation from getting worse and to protect the members of the press,” Mayor Bloomberg said, adding, “We have to provide protection and we’ve done exactly that.”

Just "routine." Denying access to the press, the Authoritarian Have Mayor of New York explains, is simply standard operating procedure. Sure, the press has rights…..but the Have Mayor gets to decide when and how those rights can be exercised…and for how long.

The kicker to me is Bloomberg's explanation that in refusing press access to the storm trooper roll up, he was only acting for the purpose of "protect(ing) the members of the press." Bloomberg, apparently, acting as the Have-Daddy of New York City, must unilaterally deny the press access rights to keep the press safe.

Whatever rights you thought you enjoyed in America are now subject to our Have-Leaders determination of whether we are "safe" or not. You see, rights are fine and all….but when a situation is just "unsafe", then, Billionaire Leaders must insist on limiting or denying those rights for the greater good of "safety."

Allow me to expand. Americans electronic communications have always been guaranteed 4th amendment protections against unlawful search and seizure by the government. But no longer. Why? Because it is no longer "safe".

The right to due process? Another right granted by the Constitution which our Leaders have determined we can no longer safely respect. Sure, the Constitution says that every American citizen has the right to a trial by jury when charged with a crime…..but the President can no longer guarantee "safety" if he doesn't have the right to order the assassination of a U.S. citizen without….umm….due process.

Treaties against the use of torture? Virtuous, perhaps, but no longer meaningful to Authoritarian Leaders who must deny rights to keep us all "safe."

As the great "shining city on the hill" sinks into the authoritarian sunset, it will be because safety (fear) wins out over bedrock constitutional rights. After all, if it is the job of our Authoritarian Leaders to keep us "safe"…..what pesky constitutional guarantees can be allowed to get in the way?

President Obama's biggest disappointment, at least to progressives, has been his, I guess, "rebirth", as a neo-conservative.

During Obama's campaign for the presidency, he made political hay out of George and Dick's offshore gulags, torture of detainees, unprovoked military attacks and occupations of countries posing no threat to America, eavesdropping on Americans without warrants, secrecy, and much more. Rightfully so. The Bush years were marked by an expansion of presidential powers in violation of the Constitution….and the worst part is, the Bushies got away with all of it…thus setting a precedent.

But now Obama has made the Bushie doctrine, his doctrine. Now, the lawlessness of the neo-con Bush regime has been made into a bipartisan, and probably permanent, national doctrine.

Obama has continued the neo-conservative and lawless foreign policies of his predecessors. What's more, Obama has expanded those lawless powers….with his shiny new lawlessness theory that the President has the power to order the assassination of U.S. citizens on only his say so.

Indeed, all the ususal-suspect neo-cons,….Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Dick Cheney, many others….have heaped high praise on Obama the Neo-con….especially because Obama ordered the assassination of the U.S. citizen, Awlaki. It's worthy of remark that the only policy with which neo-con renegades from the Bush administration agree with Obama is on Obama's embrace of neo-con lawlessness.

That said….and with the understanding that American neo-cons have long ago targeted Iran for takeover…..it's interesting to see the Obama administration, including Obama and Hillary Clinton, hellbent to make something huge out of the recent allegations of an assassination plot by two Iranians against the Saudi ambassador to the U.S.

(AG Eric) Holder called the bomb plot a flagrant violation of U.S. and international law. And Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said, "We will not let other countries use our soil as their battleground."

Behold the double standard. Or is it simply a total lack of self-awareness?

Since 9-11-2001, the United States government has declared that the entire globe is a "battlefield" where U.S. military forces have the perfect right to wage war just about any way they see fit. In other words, at the same time that DOJ officials are claiming that "other countries" cannot be permitted to "use our soil as a battleground"….U.S. officials have claimed the unique right among all nations…to "use the soil" of any country as our "battlefield."

Chalk it up to "American exceptionalism"….or blindness….or whatever. The point becomes: do as we say, not as we do.

Two weeks ago, the United States assassinated one of its enemies in Yemen, on Yemeni soil. If the U.S. believes it has the right to assassinate enemies like Anwar Awlaki anywhere in the world in the name of a "war on terror" that has no geographical limitation, how can it then argue that other nations don't have a similar right to track down their enemies and kill them wherever they're found?

Other than simply chanting very loudly…U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A…..in order to drown out those objecting to such an obvious double standard….the U.S. really cannot argue convincingly that we, of all nations, are the only ones who are allowed to use the soil of foreign countries to conduct military adventures against our "enemies."

Why is it that the U.S., alone, should have the power to wage war against alleged enemies anywhere we choose to wage that war…..yet other nations shouldn't also have that power?

The L.A. Times editor finishes with a huge understatement…

The world is unlikely to accept that the United States has a right to behave as it wishes without accountability all around the globe and that other nations do not.

Ya' think?

If you really want to find out what this alleged Iranian plot to off a Saudi ambassador is about….read Glenn Greenwald's excellent take. Here's a description by folks who knew the alleged plotter which describes him as hapless….just like many of the others whom U.S. officials have coaxed into staging a plot against the U.S., and then later, announced how safe those officials had kept us by breaking up a domestic plot they, themselves, nurtured into existence.

But the ass-kicker of the day on this story goes to President Obama,…

“There’s a great similarity between how Iran operates and how North Korea operates, a willingness on their part to break international rules, to flout international norms, to not live up to their own commitments. And each time they do that, the United States will join with its partners and allies in making sure that they pay a price,” Obama said.

If the similarity between how N. Korea and Iran operate is….."a willingness…to break international rules, to flout international norms…"….then, the United States of America operates in a similar fashion to N. Korea and Iran.

What else could violating the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment(s) be called? I mean other than operating similarly to Iran or N. Korea?

How about Guantonomo? Our offshore, secret, prisons? Isn't there a "great similarity" between the U.S. and N.Korea and Iran concerning gulags?

How about the American violation of international norms prohibiting attacking a sovereign nation (Iraq) which poses no threat to the U.S? Hell, Iran doesn't even do stuff like that….only the U.S.

Obama may think he is standing strong by talking all Cheney-like over this most recent ginned-up emergency. But the rest of the world's occupants who heard Obama's words yesterday recognize the gargantuan double standard and lack of self-awareness contained in his words.

I was interested in my blog bud's recent post chastising Indiana Supreme Court members for ruling that citizens in Indiana "have no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes."

In a 3-2 decision, Justice Steven David writing for the court said if a police officer wants to enter a home for any reason or no reason at all, a homeowner cannot do anything to block the officer's entry.

"We believe … a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence," David said.

Da King was incensed that the 4th amendment to the Constitution was being trampled by these Indiana Supremes…..many angels danced on heads of pins in the ensuing discussion in the comment thread.

Yesterday, the Major League Supreme Court issued a new ruling basically putting an exclamation mark to the end of the 4th amendment.

The Supreme Court on Monday gave police more leeway to break into homes or apartments in search of illegal drugs when they suspect the evidence might be destroyed.

The justices said officers who smell marijuana and loudly knock on the door may break in if they hear sounds that suggest the residents are scurrying to hide the drugs.

Stripsearch Supreme, Sammy Alito wrote the majority 8-1 opinion and had this to say….

Residents who "attempt to destroy evidence have only themselves to blame" when police burst in, Justice Samuel Alito said for an 8-1 majority.

Basically the only progressive jurist left, Ruth Ginsburg, said in the lone dissent….

"The court today arms the police with a way routinely to dishonor the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement in drug cases," Ginsburg wrote. "In lieu of presenting their evidence to a neutral magistrate, police officers may now knock, listen, then break the door down, never mind that they had ample time to obtain a warrant."

Well….yeah Ruth. Who has time to fool with warrants when the ends justify the means in post-9-11 America? There's not a Dick Cheney second to lose. And hell…..I'm sure that trained law enforcement officers know just what evidence destruction sounds like and would, therefore, never abuse such power…..so, no worries then. After all, police are only concerned about our safety.

Much of the 4th amendment has long ago been sacrificed in the so-called war on drugs. A fictitious "war" with no end and no purpose other than to maintain a bloated law enforcement-prison industrial complex. With this latest ruling, the Supremes are simply tying up any loose ends.

At this juncture I would ask the Kiefer Sutherland-Dick Cheney question……'if there's a one percent chance that the rustling sound I'm hearing inside that house could be "terrorists" destroying documents….or WMD….or even maybe some hashish….AND if there's even the slightest chance that the people making that rustling sound inside that house have information about an imminent threat to American lives….anywhere…..wouldn't you want police officers to just bust the door down to keep us safe?'

Immediately after 9-11….Americans responded with a resounding 'Hell, yes.'

There's no sense in looking back and second guessing now.

When the fictitious war on terror was announced by the, as yet, unindicted war criminals, Bush and Cheney….Americans had their 4th amendment rights rescinded. It was no longer safe for Americans to not have their federal overlords spying on all their communications. After all, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. Sometimes safety must come before fidelity to a "goddamn piece of paper", as the Decider put it.

In particular, neo-con Americans felt so unsafe after 9-11 that when W's illegal-wiretapping-of-all-electronic-communications program was leaked they wanted to arrest the New York Times writers who spilled the beans….still do. Our Protectors were so concerned about our safety that it wasn't safe for us even to know how safe they were keeping us…..too risky.

Anyone who is troubled or experiencing mild forms of second guessing over the means by which our Protectors, you know, protect us…..and are just now wondering about 4th amendment protections……and what happened to those protections…..I insist that you read the latest from The New Yorker's Jane Mayer, "The Secret Sharer." It is most definitely a must read.

If you are a person who says you are concerned at all about Big Gub'mint taking away your rights….and particularly if you are one whose libertarian feathers were ruffled recently over erosion of 4th amendment rights…..then you need a good, hard-hitting, refresher course on how we arrived at where we are today.

Where we are….is exactly where neo-con worry warts and pearl clutching libertarians wanted to take us.

President Barack Obama has stated repeatedly over the past 21 months that he prefers to "look forward, not backward", which meant, and still means, that he didn't, and still doesn't, want to bog down his presidency by illuminating the collossal failures and rampant criminality of the Republican leaders, Bush-Cheney.

This gracious gesture on Obama's part, not simply ignoring Bush era crimes but embracing them as his own by pro-actively covering them up, will be responded to in January 2011….and it won't be in kind.

Think back to the worst presidency in American history when a Democratic Congress led by Speaker Pelosi took impeachment of a Republican President Bush "off the table"? Remember that uniting-rather-than-dividing pragmatic gesture?

Well, Republicans remember too….and have no intentions of doing what Nancy Pelosi did. Instead, if Republicans take the Congress, everything is going to be on the table….

August 16, 2010….

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, issued a scathing staff report today……It charges the Obama administration with violating federal laws to advance what the Government Accounting Office has characterized as an unlawful "covert campaign," using federal resources "to activate a sophisticated propaganda and lobbying campaign."

Was this alleged "covert campaign" by Obama a "propaganda" campaign to lead our nation into a war of choice, hide torture, or lie about spying on all Americans illegally?

"The use of taxpayer dollars and federal employees to create an alliance whereby the NEA becomes the de facto strategic communications arm of the White House is unlawful," the report alleges. "Using a government e-mail account and government personnel and resources to host a call using artists and arts group to support the president's agenda is a clear violation of federal law."

May 26, 2010….

In an e-mail with the subject line "The Sestak Affair – Obama's Watergate?", the ranking member on the Oversight and Government Reform committee focused on "long-standing questions" about the offer (Joe) Sestak says was made to him to urge him to drop out of the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate primary.

May 24, 2010…..the same corrupt media which helped to advance the impeachment of another Democratic President, Bill Clinton…..

May 26, 2010…..

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder today, all seven Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee “urge the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate Congressman Joe Sestak’s claim that a White House official offered him a job to induce him to exit the Pennsylvania Senate primary race against Senator Arlen Specter.”

June 15, 2010….Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN)…

[T]he thing is, here we are, people can't wait until November. They're practically lining up for polls now, they can't wait to go out and vote. The only thing is people wish Barack Obama was up for re-election right now, because they'd honestly love to have a chance to throw him out of office. Everywhere I go, people ask me, 'Michele, can we impeach the president?'

July 22, 2010…..Bachmann again….

"I think that all we should do is issue subpoenas and have one hearing after another, and expose all the nonsense that has gone on.

January 2010 poll of Republicans asking whether President Obama should be impeached , or not….

43% of Republican men said yes.
39% of all Republicans said yes.

While Obama has fought to keep us looking forward, not backward….the irony is that the conservative movement in America, assisted mightily by a corporately controlled and corrupt media, has been fighting to take America backwards. Not just looking backwards so we can learn from our mistakes, but looking backwards in order to take us backwards.

All the way back to the days of the contrived, embarassing and trivialized impeachment of President Bill Clinton, the days which kick started the now hopelessly divided nation that we have become, the days which led directly to the Bush-Cheney crimes that President Obama, still today, refuses to look backwards at.

Voting a few weeks from now to place Republicans into majority Congressional status would be comparable to holding Nero's fiddle for him while Rome burned to the ground.

The signs have been there for some time now.

There was the Kangaroo Kourt that Republicans called the impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton. It seemed surrealistic at the time. That's because it was.

There was the Supreme Court selection of the president in the 2000 election cycle.

There have been 3 huge financial disasters in the last 10 years….Dotcom blowup, the Enron, WorldCom disgrace, and now the Big Bankster Mortgage Meltdown.

Recent Supreme Court rulings have weakened the rights of students to speak freely (for just one example) while strengthening corporate America's rght to speak more abundantly. Laws seeking to make up for hundreds of years of oppression of black Americans are turned on their head to serve white men.

There have been concerted efforts to openly and defiantly deny homosexual Americans access to the "pursuit of happiness" portion of our constitutional contract.

There are the "wars of choice", the torture, Guantanomo, the "legal" spying on Americans, the Orwellian Patriot Act. All basically new to America…..all reprehensible…..all cutting straight across the historic grain of what America stands for.

So, it came as no surprise yesterday when Arizona Republican Governor, Janet Brewer, signed a new and quite extreme bill into law granting state law enforcers the right to stop and detain virtually any person inside Arizona…..for any or no reason….and demand that the person stopped produce their "papers."

There's no doubt that Arizona leaders are wrestling with a serious problem in their state. I don't mean to dismiss Arizona's ongoing problem with undocumenteds. Yes, it's a problem….a problem which must be dealt with.

At the same time, and factoring in many of the troubling signposts I listed above, the signing into law of such an unAmerican law in Arizona strikes me as simply one more indication that America is in serious trouble.

We're losing our way.

A few years ago President George W. Bush tried to persuade Republicans and conservatives to embrace a new comprehensive immigration bill. Because the bill contained a "pathway to citizenship" that didn't require rounding up all Hispanic-looking people in America and sending them south of the border……far right conservatives, urged on by AM radio haters, raised such a fuss screeching "no amnesty"……that absolutely nothing could be accomplished. Bush backed down.

The leading GOP proponent of comprehensive immigration reform was John McCain. McCain represented the GOP in the 2008 presidential election…..yet McCain, because of his position on comprehensive immigration reform, was never warmly embraced by conservative voters. Those voters preferred his cheerleader-like running mate.

To today's conservatives, at least it seems to me, it's all come down to this: it's either their way or no way. The word compromise, to far right conservatives, is a word that depicts failure, weakness. Compromise must be avoided at all costs.

And so we get laws like the one signed in Arizona yesterday. Laws that are destructive, divisive, unconstitutional. Laws that will never solve, or even attenuate, the undocumented problem Arizona is facing.

Laws that should remind us of one thing….America is in trouble.

I read a good one from the associate editor of NewsBusters. NewsBusters is a creatively conservative online site usually chock full of fact-free, wingnut postings.

First, a quick review…

You have probably seen a video clip by now of a sting on multiple ACORN offices by Hannah Giles (playing the prostitute) and James O'Keefe (playing the pimp). When the two sting actors finally got an ACORN person to bite on their "we want to buy a house, use it as a brothel for underage El Salvadoran girls, what should we do" nonsense, the video byte was quickly circulated by the right wing propaganda machine as "proof" that ACORN was a criminal enterprise.

No ACORN person has been charged with any crimes, NOTHING has been proven in a court of law….yet, Congress, the knee-jerk spineless assh*les that they are, quickly passed a bill to defund anything ACORN.

We now know that the acting duo tried out their vaudeville sting act in many ACORN offices around the country. So, we know it was a fishing expedition with only one purpose in mind…..get something damaging or potentially damaging to use against ACORN, thus, hurting the voter registration non-profit who primarily registers minority voters, who just so happen to vote overwhelmingly Democratic….AND….damage Obama in the process because he once had dealings back in Chicago with the community organizing group, ACORN.

The objective of the hooker-and-pimp show is clear.

Here's where the wingnut fun begins. Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe didn't find sound byte success in many cities' ACORN offices. ACORN employees called police on the sting duo at a couple of locations where a "gotcha" could not be obtained for Fox's Beck to later get a hard-on on camera about.

In Baltimore, where the young wingnut sting actors were trying, unsuccessfully, to entrap ACORN officials for wingnut-media purposes, a question has come up over whether the duo's taping the sting without permission was illegal.

That question of the illegality of secret videotaping in Maryland, just the question, has tweaked the tinfoil of NewsBusters' bloggers.

Associate editor of NewsBusters, Noel Sheppard…..I'm sure without any sense of irony, had this to say about the potential for Baltimore officials pressing charges against the hooker-and-pimp actors.

"..we now not only have a media unwilling to report the misdeeds of ACORNers, but we also have authorities going after those that dare to uncover such acts.

Honestly — what country is this?"

Though not intended….. that's some funny stuff.

Wingnuts, naturally, wanted every cable and network "news" outlet to run a 24/7 loop of the hooker-and-pimp sting on ACORN. Wingnut media representatives taunted any media outlet who didn't comply with their wingnut wishes to feature the phony sting story.

Wingnuts, like Sheppard and his boss, the goofball Brent Bozell, are the movers of the modern conservative movement, and minorities, while accepted by wingnuts, are rarely part of that movement. Wingnuts believe the work of a primarily black non-profit voter registration and inner-city housing group only benefits the Democratic Party….and it's the fulltime job of wingnuts to diminish any power Democrats have. ACORN, by it's very existence, is a threat to conservative wingnuts.

But back to Noel Sheppard's quote….."we have authorities going after those that dare to uncover such acts."

NewsBusters, when it came to the exposing of the unlawful acts of Bush/Cheney in spying on Americans without warrants, judicial warrants as the Constitution requires, didn't care so much about, you know, journalists uncovering and exposing such acts. In fact, NewsBusters wanted "authorities" to go after those who did the "exposing."

NewsBusters' Sheppard Jan.29, 2005…

If only the Times would follow its own advice and stop betraying the public's trust by continually convicting people in its publication before they’ve been charged with a crime.

Umm…..Amen, Noel.

Sheppard again, June 26, 2006…

[I]t is high time the U.S. government took a stand against the reporting of classified intelligence information by America’s press. Irrespective of the self-serving opinions of Bill Keller and his associates, the public’s interest in safety and national defense is much greater than its desire to know the intricate details of how the government achieves such vital goals.

…..

With that in mind, the Justice Department, led by attorney general Alberto Gonzales, must investigate and decide whether or not to prosecute the Times for its possibly treasonous acts.

I say to NewsBusters' Sheppard, "Honestly, Noel,…what country is this?"

Is ours a country where authorities are encouraged to go after those that dare to uncover such dastardly acts?
_______________

Bonus video: NewsBusters could take a lesson from this video. This is how intended irony is done……

Over the past number of years, whenever I suggested that George W. Bush was actually an American terrorist leader, I was quickly reprimanded by those Serious and Grown-up Conservatives who immediately sought to describe the former president as "protecting us from Islamofascists."

Now, former Bush Homeland Security head, Tom Ridge, in a new book, follows in the footsteps of The Reverend, and tells his readers that, yes, George W. Bush terrorized the American people for political gain.

From the news release…

Former US homeland security chief Tom Ridge charges in a new book that top aides to then-president George W. Bush pressured him to raise the "terror alert" level to sway the November 2004 US election.

Then defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and attorney general John Ashcroft pushed him to elevate the color-coded threat level, but Ridge refused, according to a summary from his publisher, Thomas Dunne Books.

……

He also says that Bush's homeland security adviser at the White House, Fran Townsend, called his department ahead of an August 1, 2004 speech to ask Ridge to include a reference to "defensive measures … away from home" — language that he read as being a reference to the Iraq war.

In those remarks, Ridge said he was raising the threat alert level for the financial services sector in New York City, northern New Jersey, and Washington DC, and went on to praise Bush's leadership against extremism.

……

He later publicly acknowledged that much of the information underpinning the new alert was three years old, stoking Bush critics' charges of political manipulation.

I wrote many times during the Bush-Cheney overthrow of the United States that Karl Rove's obsession with a permanent Republican majority led him and Bush to politicize everything emanating from the White House. Early critics of the Bush administration called the Bushies "Mayberry Machiavellis" for a reason. "Everything was political," is the answer.

When a high government leader seeks to frighten the population he is responsible to protect, and he does so for the purpose of gaining a political edge……that person is a terrorist. Osama Bin Laden's political philosophy and George W Bush's were the same. Bin Laden's philosophy states that if people are scared, terrorized by events, political leanings can be altered, changed.

George W. Bush thought the same as Bin Laden. The Bushies actively sought to terrorize the American voting population just prior to the 2004 election, without any credible evidence to justify the terrorizing, in order to alter the outcome of what looked to be a very tight presidential race with John Kerry.

None of this is new. I've known about Ridge raising the terror chart levels for political purposes for years. But as Glenn Greenwald blogs, whenever someone, you know, from the loony left, suggested that's what was going on…..well, we were just loony…..and not Serious, like corporate-whore media members.

And it wasn't just terror color charts. The Iraq crime was sold to America using terror. "Mushroom clouds", "chemical and biological weapons", "WMD", "no doubt that Saddam has reconstituted his weapons program"…..etc. Spying on Americans without benefit of warrants, torturing detainees, Gitmo, extrordinary kidnappings…..all of this was sold to us with terror. All of this, as we have witnessed with The Dick since Obama's inauguration, was meant to scare, to terrorize the American people for conservative political purposes.

It's not simply George W. Bush who is guilty of terrorizing the American people during his administration, though he definitely is guilty. The Republican Party has become the Party of Terror. Constantly seeking to frighten and terrorize Americans through the use of imminent danger fear. That's the purpose of the townhall bust-ups, the carrying of semi-automatic weapons, the shouts, the visible hatred…..it's to scare, to terrorize other Americans for a political objective, in this case, to defeat health care reform.

All of this is transparently obvious, just as it was transparently obvious when the Bushies were leading the nation around using terror tactics in order to complete their wet dream of attacking and occupying Iraq.

It's a good thing that a moderate Republican, like Tom Ridge, is setting the record straight.

UPDATE: Here's a prime example of what I'm getting at today, from Idaho.

Also this.

From 2002-2006 Republicans controlled Congress by an ever-so-slight margin, so if Bush-Cheney were to be successful in carrying out their criminal plans against America and some foreign countries, it would take the help of, at least, a few congressional Democrats.

A prime example of the veracity of this claim is found in Senator Jay Rockefeller's (D-WV) aiding of Mr. Bush and The Dick on immunizing telecommunications companies who participated in a conspiracy with the Terror Twins to spy on Americans illegally. Rockefeller was rewarded handsomely for his efforts from the telcos….lots of campaign bribery cash….and the Bush-Cheney syndicate successfully closed off one more potential ray of light from shining into the darkness of their mostly-criminal administration.

Now comes Jane Harmon (D-CA). The story out yesterday about Jane Harmon is a BIG story. It gives us an insider look at how high-level crimes are carried out by elected officials, and how both sides are complicit in those crimes.

CQ Politics broke the story yesterday….

Sources: Wiretap Recorded Rep. Harman Promising to Intervene for AIPAC

Rep. Jane Harman , the California Democrat with a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department to reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington.

Harman was recorded saying she would "waddle into" the AIPAC case "if you think it'll make a difference," according to two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript.

In exchange for Harman's help, the sources said, the suspected Israeli agent pledged to help lobby Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., then-House minority leader, to appoint Harman chair of the Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections, which the Democrats were heavily favored to win.

Seemingly wary of what she had just agreed to, according to an official who read the NSA transcript, Harman hung up after saying, "This conversation doesn't exist."

The CQ Politics piece is a must read.

In September of 2007 I wrote about Harman's role in helping Bush-Cheney to legalize the abolishing of the 4th amendment in the FISA rewrite bill.

Long story short…AIPAC was lobbying Harman for the purpose of obstructing justice in a criminal case involving some of their members. Harman wanted the Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Bush/Gonzales wanted Harman's continued vote and leadership within the Democratic caucus over the illegal-wiretapping-of-Americans program.

Harman helped AIPAC….AIPAC helped Harman….Gonzales protected Harman from further investigation.

Please read this story….it is one of those rare opportunities when we get to see how the incestuous clusterf*ck in Washington D.C. actually works.

1) President Obama had a busy day yesterday.

From Dana Priest of the Washington Post….

The military's Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, facility, where the rights of habeas corpus and due process had been denied detainees, will close, and the CIA is now prohibited from maintaining its own overseas prisons. And in a broad swipe at the Bush administration's lawyers, Obama nullified every legal order and opinion on interrogations issued by any lawyer in the executive branch after Sept. 11, 2001.

Elections have consequences. In the case of Obama's presidency following Bush's……elections have significant consequences. Obama did the right thing in closing American gulags and sh*tcanning "every legal order and opinion on interrogations issued by any lawyer in the executive branch after Sept. 11, 2001".
Every order and opinion on interrogations since 9-11. That's a big wow.

2) jimmy james mentioned recently in a comment that perennial Villager Peggy Noonan, columnist for the Washington Post, and former speechwriter for Mr. Ronald Reagan, didn't think Barack Obama's Inaugural address was overly critical toward the outgoing George W. Bush. Here's part of jimmy's tongue in cheek comment…

"Rev, you are way off base here. I just heard Peggy Noonan say on The Television Machine that Obama's speech was not a repudiation of Bush." Link

From a New York Times column by Peter Baker reprinted in today's AB Journal….first, whining from Karen Hughes, George Bush's surrogate mother….

"There were a few sharp elbows that really rankled and I felt were not as magnanimous as the occasion called for," Karen Hughes, a longtime Bush confidant, said in an interview. "He really missed an opportunity to be as big as the occasion was and, frankly, as gracious as President Bush was as he left office."

Then this….

Dan Bartlett, another top adviser, used similar language. "It was a missed opportunity to bring some of the president's loyal supporters into the fold," he said. Marc Thiessen, the chief White House speechwriter until this week, added: "It was an ungracious inaugural. It was pretty clear he was taking shots." Link

"Pretty clear he was taking shots"…….shots Peggy Noonan did not hear nor recognize. The most loyal Bushies thought Obama's address was "ungracious", "a missed opportunity", Obama guilty of "taking shots" at the former president. The closest of Bush's confidants agree that The Reverend had it right all along.

3) For years I have been blogging about the extensive crimes of the Bush-Cheney administration, but specifically their blanket violation of the 4th amendment which protects Americans from government's spying on them without judicial approval.

It isn't news to me that the Bush administration had ordered the construction of a "mirror" AT&T communications hub in San Francisco years ago through which ALL American communications were being monitored. Not just, you know, Islamofascists…..like we were told….but ALL Americans…..and ALL communications. The worst part is that it all started BEFORE 9-11. Please consider this piece from last night's Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC…..

Former NSA agent, Russell Tice, whom the Bush people have been stalking for awhile now, came out publicly Wednesday night on MSNBC's Countdown, followed by a second appearance last night. Those appearances can be seen here and here.

Tice gives firsthand information that the Bush administration, through the NSA's ongoing program of vacuuming up all American communications without judicial approval and in violation of FISA laws, specifically TARGETED U.S. news organizations and journalists.

This extensive criminal-spying behavior, when found out about in 2004 by Bush's own employees at the FBI and the Justice Department, resulted in threats of resignation by those same high level employees if the criminality wasn't stopped.

Enraged by all this, Bush went after whistleblower Thomas Tamm, the Justice Department lawyer who told the New York Times' James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, who subsequently told Americans about Bush's illegal spying program. The NY Times and the journalists in question were, undoubtedly according to Tice's new revelation, already being targeted by the very Bush program the two journalists were blowing the whistle on.

This is only the beginning of what's sure to be an avalanche of details-to-come revealing the numerous and extensive crimes of the past administration.

Ever work someplace where you had to take inventory periodically? Methods of taking inventory have changed dramatically over the last 30 years with the explosion of digital communications….but back in the day, I did it the old fashioned way….hand counting and tallying on a clipboard. One aspect of taking inventory, however, will never change. The purpose. The purpose of taking inventory is to get an accurate count of where a company currently stands.

Let's take inventory of America, shall we?

What products are proudly displayed on the shelves in American government 'stores' now that are basically new products, even though they have always been available, you know, out the back door?

1) America now offers a 'new and improved formula' of torture cleanser. When a spot of Judeo-Christian brand righteous indignation gets on our national security clothing, we can torture it out now by applying the newly patented formula of 'interrogation techniques'. Sold by our media salespeople under both "harsh" and "enhanced" labels, the torture cleanser doesn't actually work well, as many experts agree, but it does a helluva clean-up job on those pesky vengeance spots occasionally found on our collective consciences.

Although often found in the contents of 'blackbag' operators throughout our god-ordained government's history, I can't remember ever seeing torture wrapped in such attractive and patriotic media packaging before. I can't remember our Great and Serious Leader Salesforce ever boldly placing this up-til-now prohibited product in front window displays before.

Jot it down on your clipboard. Torture is now one of America's new products. Sure, we've hired some new salespeople recently, touting that our new torture product is a bit defective, but what could Inexperienced, Unserious, Newbees know about the wide array of benefits flowing from new product branding? That's right….not much. The 'proof' that our new torture product has staying power is that America hasn't been attacked since 9-11….well….except for the anthrax attacks….and those obviously don't count….simply an aberration in the data.

2) Sometimes, while taking inventory, one notices an outdated product resurrected under a new name. Take retro-jeans, for example. Back in the silly, silly days of protesting flagrant civil rights inequalities and wars waged for the sake of military-industrialists, young American men took to wearing old jeans with holes in them. Now we can simply buy them that way.

Spying, unconstitutionally, on Americans has become like retro-jeans. It's all the rage. Back in the days following Richard Nixon's police-state captivity of Americans, the silly, silly Church Committee led to the retro-product, nostalgically known as the FISA laws. Meant to address the epidemic of Nixon-inspired 4th amendment violations regarding search and seizure, as well as the use of the NSA and CIA against political critics, FISA law products were used successfully, and without objections, by both Republican and Democratic CEO salesmen for 3 decades.

But after 9-11, everything changed. A brand new product, though sold as a retro, was introduced in 2001. No longer, we were told in 2001, need we be afraid of rogue presidents ordering unlawful activities. No longer need we fear the NSA or CIA violating our constitutional rights. We need only fear a stateless, faceless, ragtag group of Muslims armed with primitive, you could call them retro, weapons.

'Unitary executive' decisions were made to vacuum up each and every American's e-mails, financial transactions, and phone calls. All done without FISA warrants…all in direct violation of the Constitution and all done in secrecy. Military members were instructed to infiltrate political groups critical of the 'unitary executive'. Just like during the good-ole' Nixon retro days.

When the extremely-non-patriotic New York Times decided to announce our Glorious New Retro Product of spying on Americans, you know, ahead of schedule….they were rightly villified by Non-Silly, Patriotic Sales Reps. The evidence that this new and improved spying product should be included on our inventory clipboard is the fact that the New York Times whistleblower is being prosecuted for giving up proprietary secrets. More evidence that our bright and shiny new spying product is a big success is the Very, Deeply, Serious Congress' dismissal of the silly, silly idea that the original Nixonian product was defective.

Don't forget to include 'spying on Americans' on your American inventory clipboard.

3) The newest, and most sophisticated, product, found proudly displayed in our largest media-outlet stores, has been ingeniously labeled, 'the minority should rule'. This new product, often heard about from behind the very conservative doors of our Highly Moral and Patriotic national salesforce, was rolled out to rousing success immediately after the Very Unserious American Voters decided to put French-like salespeople in the majority in 2006. Those silly, silly consumers.

The Deeply Serious new minority have patriotically kept us in Iraq, against the wishes of silly, majority voters. This new 'minority rules' product has been ever-so-instrumental in marketing and maintaining our other new inventoried products, numbers 1 and 2 above. What could an Unwashed and Unserious majority know about selling new products that are good for us, anyway?

As the new sales-year begins, I am seeing more and more evidence of 'minority rule' marketing. And rightfully so. Here's but one example. Why should America foolishly stimulate a depressed economy, as the Unqualified Majority suggests, when the Much More Patriotic and Wise Minority, so successful when in majority status, have 41 Seasoned Experts in the senate salesforce whose Patriotic Wisdom and Righteous Record in Sales, is unmatched?

The Minority Should Rule product, The Reverend predicts, will be the new X-Box. Everyone in sales will be astonished at the Patriotic Brilliance of this new product line.

Mark down, Minority Should Rule, on your clipboard. It will be on the shelves for a long time.